Put A Spell On Me (a verkwan fic)

Chapter Ten: Frantic Moms in Costume Stores

A/N: warning for slightly spooky stuff (not halloween yet!!)

also sorry in advance

Seungkwan usually liked to spend his Saturdays in Hansol's shop, asking pointless questions and staring at Hansol's beautifully structured face (dear god, that jawline), but that particular Saturday, he felt like doing something on his own.

He hadn't been downtown in a while, so he sent Hansol a text to let him know he wouldn't be visiting today and grabbed a jacket before leaving the house.

He took the bus. Like many others, Seungkwan liked to put on his headphones and lean his head against the window, even despite the overall shakiness of the bus that caused him to lightly hit his head against the glass enough times to maybe have given him a concussion if he was any less lucky than he already was.

Though their town was small, it was colorful. The city center - or downtown, if you weren't feeling pretentious enough to say city center - was exciting all year round. Around New Year's, you wouldn't be able to walk past a single store without being blitzed with lights and lanterns. On Christmas, every building would be covered in twinkling lights and paper snowflakes. They even had their own smaller, less known festivities, unique to their town and its history, and those would be just as wonderful as any other.

A week away from Halloween, you'd start to see mannequins with fanciful costumes behind the shop windows and carved pumpkins on doorsteps and garlands of paper skeletons above entranceways.

Though he knew he couldn't even get through five minutes of a horror movie without wanting to close his eyes, Seungkwan loved Halloween. Costumes and festivities always excited him. It was his chance to dress up as something special and eye-catching, and he loved attention anyway, so it was a sort of bonus, if not an excuse. Now, as a newly discovered witch, the holiday was given a bit more importance than it did a while ago.

He had no goal or plan when he first got the idea to have his little outing, but after seeing a fake skeleton dressed as a pirate (what was the owner thinking?), he figured he might as well grab Halloween necessities while he was here.

His first stop was a Halloween supplies store. He began to regret the decision slightly when he stepped in and immediately bumped into a frantic mom and her five year old kid in a princess costume.

"Watch where you're going!" she screeched into his ear and pulled her child away.

Seungkwan mumbled a quiet apology and moved away from the entrance and further into the shop. There were multiple clones of the woman though, all of them mothers - and the occasional dad - dragging along their kid in a basic costume all around the store. Seungkwan did pass one kid in a Batman costume and gave him a thumbs up when his mom wasn't looking.

"Looking for anything specific?" a voice asked him from nearby.

The voice appeared to have belonged to a sweet looking girl who was leaning over the shop counter, putting on a smile to hide what looked like a semi-distressed expression. The name tag attached to her uniform read 'Eunwoo'.

"Not really," Seungkwan responded.

"Okay, good," she said and let out a breath in relief. "There are already way too many crazy parents in here to deal with. No offense, but if you had said you needed help, I might have actually died. Ma'am, please keep your child away from Mr. Bones ." She gestured to a woman who huffed and made no effort to pull her child's hands off the model skeleton.